The bits of advice, the little asides, are slipped into the text so naturally that they are never repulsive or calculated to raise antagonism in the minds of those who naturally dislike advice. Taken from the text they seem more formal and less helpful, but here are a few of them as illustrations: "Let well alone, lad, and ill too at times." "You must expect to be beat a few times in your life, little man, if you live such a life as a man ought to live." "Ah, first thoughts are best, and a body's heart'll guide them right, if they will but hearken to it." "It was not quite well bred, no doubt; but you know, Tom had not finished his education yet." "For salmon, like other true gentlemen, always choose their lady and love her, and are true to her, and take care of her, and work for her, and fight for her, as every true gentleman ought." "What has been once can never come over again." "No more to be bought for money than a good conscience or the Victoria cross." "You see, experience is of very little good unless a man, or a lobster, has wit enough to make use of it." "It is not good for little boys to be told everything, and never to be forced to use their own wits." "And so if you do not know that things are wrong, that is no reason why you should not be punished for them; though not as much, my little man (and the lady looked very kindly, after all), as if you did know." "I am quite sure that she knows best. Perhaps she wishes people to learn to keep their fingers out of the fire by having them burned." "I always forgive people the minute they tell me the truth of their own accord." "But even they were no foolisher than some hundred scores of papas and mamas; who fetch the rod when they ought to fetch a new toy, and send to the dark cupboard instead of to a doctor." VII. _Life-like Characters._ The great storyteller makes his characters seem like human beings. The reader can almost see them; at any rate, he feels that he knows them and that they are real, not merely life-like. It is hard to understand how the author accomplishes the wonderful feat (for it is the most wonderful thing about story writing), and it is much more difficult to tell how it is done. One word here, a clear descriptive phrase there, and Tom, or the Squire, or the old schoolmistress, or Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid with her awkward name, has become so much of a personality that you cannot forget if you would. Certainly one of the fine things about _Tom, the Water Baby_ is the living reality of its characters, which appeals universally to young and old, even in the first reading of the story.